


And That Is How I Laid the Memory Down

by sariagray



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Explicit Language, M/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariagray/pseuds/sariagray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto is slightly sunburned. Ianto and Jack have sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And That Is How I Laid the Memory Down

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by analineblue. The song lyrics interspersed herein are from “Live With Me” by Massive Attack.

_It don't matter, where you turn  
Gonna survive, you live and learn.  
I've been thinking about you, baby.  
By the light of dawn,  
And midnight blue  
Day and night  
I've been missing you.  
I've been thinking about you, baby.  
Almost makes me crazy._

It is dim and cool, though Ianto’s skin still burns with the warmth of the previous day’s excursion in the sun. The bed creaks beneath him as he shifts his weight, reverently running his fingertips over the feverish flesh. He traces the pits and lines of scars, now fluorescent white against the pink of him.

Jack is watching with interest. Ianto has yet to determine what kind of interest this is, but the heat of Jack’s stare rivals the burning of his own body. He can feel it prickling up and down with gooseflesh, like the way the atmosphere seems to be electric when the rift is about to spike, lightning-and-ozone in midsummer.

A hand joins Ianto’s on its journey across his stomach, fingers pressing more firmly than Ianto’s own ghosting touch, and he smiles to see his skin go red-pale-red in a matter of seconds. Jack grasps Ianto’s wrist bruisingly tight, halting his movements. It crosses Ianto’s mind that he’s being painted, red and white, purple-blue-green-yellow. He’s sure he’d spent far too much time in the sun yesterday afternoon, that it had gone to his brain and burned that, too, like an abundance of champagne.

Jack nips at his wrist and it feels like it was hard enough to draw blood, but it clearly isn’t as there’s only a light indentation in the wake of Jack’s teeth. It’s strange to see Jack look so uncertain, so vulnerable; his eyes have even more shadows than they did when they last parted. He seems older, lines drawn expertly across his face that Ianto swears was smooth just hours ago.

“Please,” Jack whispers. “ _Please_.”

Ianto nods once, hums his approval, even though he doesn’t know exactly what it is that he’s sanctioning. There is a gentle touch to his chin, his neck, and then unyielding hands grip his shoulders and lips press against his with such breathless desperation, it leaves him dizzy.

He can’t quite figure out why Jack’s so filled with need; it’s just a bit of sunburn, after all, and the mission had been an easy success (if he discounted the lack of sunblock, of course). Gwen had gotten it much worse, the bridge of her nose an adorable, angry red that had Owen laughing on his way into the hothouse for some sort of aloe-like alien plant.

_Either way, win or lose,  
When you're born into trouble,  
You live the blues,  
I've been thinking about you, baby.  
See: it almost makes me crazy.  
Child, nothing's right if you ain't here  
I'd give all that I have, just to keep you near  
I wrote you a letter, and tried to make it clear,  
But you just don't believe that I'm sincere.  
I've been thinking about you, baby._

“Could never forget you,” Jack whispers against his lips and Ianto breathes in those words. They taste curious on his tongue, a bit like death and redemption.

“Good,” he pants brokenly and wraps his arms around the space between Jack’s chest and waist, metaphorically between cock and heart, where Ianto feels he rightly belongs.

Ianto’s orgasm is a thing like shattered glass, sharp and beautiful and just this side of devastating. His body aches with use, his mind aches with possibilities and speculations, and his heart aches a little, too, but he’s not really sure why or with what.

Jack is gasping out a gratuitous apology as Ianto floats back to reality, something about a long time and mistakes that Ianto wants to silence.

“It’s fine,” Ianto murmurs against Jack’s shoulder. “I could’ve told you to stop at any time.”

“I don’t know that I would’ve.”

Ianto lets out a harsh burst of laughter. “Good thing I didn’t ask you to, then.”

But Jack’s eyes are still shadowed and ancient and too fucking depressing for words, so Ianto adopts his Serious Expression and places an arm on Jack’s shoulder.

“I trust you,” he whispers and Jack grimaces.

“I wish you didn’t have to. But you do. And you will. I want to tell you not to, but I can’t. You need to.”

Ianto blinks against the darkness of his room. “Oh.”

There’s usually a pleasant sensation that accompanies realization, things clicking into place, but this just makes him feel ill for both their sakes. He raises his hand from Jack’s shoulder to caress his face and pretends (once again) to be more oblivious than he is, afraid that Jack will completely disappear if he lets on that he _knows_.

“You love me,” Jack says and for once it isn’t in the overly-assured, gloating way he employs when he does something highly questionable.

No, this time it’s an accusation and it weighs on Ianto’s chest like a death sentence.

“Do I?” Ianto asks, though he knows the answer and he hates himself for it. “That’s nice.”

Jack pretends to laugh and Ianto pretends to smile, and then draws him close so that Jack’s head rests on his chest. It’s awkward, their positions so completely reversed, but Jack’s eyes scream that he needs this badly, and Ianto can only comply.

“I think I love you, too,” Jack murmurs. “But I’ll always deny it.”

“Good,” Ianto echoes himself, allowing it all to come full circle and settle around him. “Can’t let anyone know.”

“Exactly.”

Jack yawns and shifts closer as he settles in comfortably. Ianto doesn’t rest well all night, kept half-awake by thoughts of Death and Time and Jack. Jack, who is fast asleep now in a way Ianto has never witnessed before.

_Plans and schemes, hopes and fears,  
Dreams I've denied for all these years  
I, I've been thinking about you, baby._

In the morning, Ianto is alone and his flat is empty. He performs his morning rituals with stuttering movements, his body constantly making false starts and erratic stops. His hands shake so much that it takes him more than five minutes to button his shirt.

The Hub is quiet when he enters, half an hour earlier than usual despite the time it took him to get ready. Jack stands in front of his office, watching him enter. His arms are folded across his chest and his face is unlined but closed off.

“Where’d you run off to last night?”

Ianto freezes and plasters a smile onto his face.  
“Home,” he calls back simply, not waiting to witness Jack’s reaction.


End file.
